So my Mother's Day wish was granted.  I spent the day with my men and had a stress free time. And I watched my husband get licked by an Elk.  His first. It was quite fascinating.  We were just standing there, not paying attention to it, talking about how we have never seen an Elk up close, marveling at how calm it looked in the midst of all the Buffalo--who were shedding in unfortunate patterns which made them look like they had pieces of old, water logged rugs on their backs.  Teddy wanted to show us the Penguins and when we turned around we came face to face, or in my husband's case, hand to tongue, with an Elk.  We have been calling him Carl.  His antlers are fuzzy and look like they are covered with beige moss. 

If I were giving out stars for kid's zoos I would probably give the Turtleback Zoo 3.5 out of 5 stars.  A zoo with 5 stars would have to include an Elephant, some major apes and a giraffe.  We really enjoyed it though. There are a nice variety of animals, such as Carl, the aforementioned Elk, Bison, two Bald Eagles, two Leopards, a Red Panda, Kangaroo, White Wolves, Mountain Lions, two depressed looking Gibbons, Penguins, Prairie Dogs with a tunnel underneath their area so that we can pop our heads out to see them up close, and a petting zoo with Llama, Sheep, Horses, Goats, etc. etc.  Nothing ground breaking, but the Eagles were really cool to see and my husband loved the wolves.  The designers of the Zoo seem to have put some effort into constructing their enclosures so that we could get close to the animals obviously without harm to the animals or us, but it felt more intimate and definitely kid friendly. 

Other added attractions to the Zoo are an Endangered Species Carousel that is inside and a play area with some fast moving slides!  They also have an eating area, but try to bring your own food, theirs is a little lacking.  It is not far at all, which is good as we did not sit in any traffic and were there way before I thought we would be.  It was a great day regardless of the windy weather and I would recommend taking the trip if you feel like getting off the island.  For more info their website address is:  http://www.turtlebackzoo.com